2023-11-11 05:00:00
Over the past year, an average of 78 people filed for bankruptcy every day in Quebec. The situation is particularly worrying in the north of Lanaudière, where in a specific area there are the largest number of insolvency files in the country, reveal data collected by our Bureau of Investigation.
«[Dans] the entire north of Lanaudière, the north of Saint-Jérôme too, [il y a beaucoup de gens] who will seek social services and who have no assets and who will declare bankruptcies,” comments trustee Mathieu Roy, of the M. Roy & Associés office.
In absolute numbers, a geographic area encompassing part of the Lanaudière and Mauricie regions has the largest number of insolvency proceedings in Canada.
The sector whose first letters of the postal code are J0K, where the towns of Sainte-Julienne, Saint-Calixte and Rawdon are located, in Lanaudière, is particularly affected.
Infographics Le Journal de Montréal
The most affected regions
Insolvency files since January 2023
NAME OF
FILE POSTSCODE SECTOR 416J0KLanaudière (excluding Joliette) 198G0APortneuf, Côte-de-Beaupré, Charlevoix-Ouest (excluding large cities)198J0LRSouth Shore of Montreal (excluding large cities)189J6EJoliette171G0RBellechasse-L’Islet164G0SLotbinière-L’Érable (excluding large cities ) 160J2BDrummondville south148J3YSt-Hubert145J7ZSt-Jérôme est144J3BSt-Jean-sur-Richelieu (St-Jean sector)
Source: Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy
NUMBER OF INSOLVENCY FILES OPENED
In Quebec
24 443
as of August 31, 2022
Postal region: J0K
416Highest in absolute numbers in Canada
since January 2023
Quebec overrepresented
While it has already been considered the champion of bankruptcies in Canada, Quebec is still over-represented in terms of insolvency files in the country since the pandemic.
“Historically, […] we no longer resort to bankruptcy [au Québec] »
– Mathieu Roy, trustee M. Roy & Associés
Photo Photo taken from the M.Roy & Associés website
At the end of August 2023, the number of consumer insolvency proceedings had jumped 17.5% year-on-year in Quebec, according to figures from the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy.
Downward trend
Despite this, the trend tends to improve. In 2019, Quebec had an insolvency rate of 6.3, or the number of bankruptcies or proposals to creditors per 1,000 inhabitants. The Canadian average then stood at 4.6. In 2021, the insolvency rate in Quebec fell to 3.3, compared to 2.9 in Canada.
“It still changed the profile. The rest of Canada, especially in the west, experienced a more rapid increase in insolvency proceedings than in Quebec. They have suffered perhaps more recently from the economy,” comments Jonathan Roy, administrative director at Pierre Roy et Associés.
The latter points out that historically, personal income was lower in Quebec than in Ontario, which can partly explain, in his opinion, why there were more bankruptcies here.
“We perhaps have a little less financial education in Quebec,” he adds.
The fact that houses are more expensive in Ontario and British Columbia also explains, according to him, why the debt rate is higher in these provinces, but that there are paradoxically fewer insolvency files.
Mortgage debt can be considered “good debt,” he explains, because it is secured by an asset, unlike credit card debt, for example.
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